Be Wiser Ducati’s Shane Byrne will start from the sixth row for the first of two MCE British Superbike races at Assen after not crashing once, but twice in very wet conditions.
Up until this afternoon, the weekend had gone well for the five-time champion with dry weather yesterday seeing the Sittingbourne-based Londoner comfortably quickest. Indeed, a time of 1’36.136s put him over three quarters of a second inside the lap record.
But in the rain the Panigale racer crashed in Q2. After the first incident he was able to bring his Ducati back to the garage but then he fell again on his out-lap, ending any chances of him improving on his lap time and he slipped back to 16th on the starting grid.
The situation in qualifying was made worse with main title rival, JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam seizing his opportunity to qualify in second for a front row start, although the four other showdown contenders qualified outside the top ten, just like Byrne
“Obviously today’s been a big disappointment, especially after such a good run yesterday and I thought we’d be OK in the wet,” said former champ, Byrne.
”But then I got a couple of nasty surprises with two crashes in the space of a few minutes during Q2 which did me no favours at all. I’m a bit battered and my left hand is a bit sore but I’ll live and we’ll try to right the wrongs in the two races tomorrow. It’s supposed to be dry and there are plenty of passing places here at Assen so I’m not too worried.”
